Just Nick

My first steps in the video game industry :

During my 2008-2009 school year, Cyanide and IIM (my school) agreed to collaborate together for Cyanide's upcoming game "Blood Bowl".

I was a 3rd year student at the time and was lucky to be part of the few students chosen to be part of team that would work for Cyanide. Our mission was to animate 4 cinematics for the game. I am proud to say that these cinematics are now on the official site of the game.

After working for Cyanide through out this school project, I was able to obtain an internship in Cyanide's studio for the 4th year of my school cursus. I worked as an animator on Blood Bowl, which was still in development. My work consisted in creating in-game charater animations and modifying/correcting existing animations. During the end of my internship, I was "promoted" and was in charge of the animation team used for outsourcing. Cyanide outsourced some of the animation work to a studio based in the Philippines: Mahatari Studio. I was in contact with Mahatari's lead animator. We communicated mostly by e-mail, I sent him my directions on what to do and my feedback on the work sent by his team. Giving feedback and directions on animation work by e-mail wasn't the practical thing to do, but I was able to overcome this problem by sending Mahatari some video references along with my explanations on what to do.

What this experience brought me :

Being a fan of Games Workshop's board games and art work since the age of 12, working on one of their franchises' video game was practically a dream come true. I never thought that one day I would have the chance to be part of one of their projects. Thanks to Cyanide, I was able to. Furthermore, the experience I've had working in their studio with a great and fun team really boosted my motivation for working in the video game industry and 3D animation. I'm am very thankful for the chance and responsibilities they gave me.

Visit Blood Bowl's official website and take a look at the trailers.

History :

Like all martial arts, a IAIDO student needs many years of practice in order to understand and execute movements according to the rules of the art. This art has two particularities, not only it uses a traditional Japanese sword (katana) but it also consists in self-defense. IAIDO was born during Japanese medieval times, period during which samurais and warlords always had to be on the lookout for their life, even during the "simplest" activities : eating, drinking tee, meditating...

The efficiency of IAIDO lies in the variation of speed of movements. IAIDO masters use the effect of surprise to overcome their attackers. Therefore, IAIDO practitioners move very slowly until they strike very quickly, making it deadly and hard for the attacker to avoid.

The project :

A former IAIDO world champion, living and teaching in Paris, asked my team and I to recreate a IAIDO kata (succession of movements) in 3D. The client wanted to find a new way to teach his discipline. He was told 3D would be an interesting and innovative way to teach a traditional art. This project came to me as school project, I was a 3rd year student at the time and was chosen to be the project manager and had to choose 2nd year students for animators. This project would be a first peek of what the client idea would look like.

The project's constraints :
- the character only wears a short, in order to have a better view of how the differents parts of the body are positionned during the kata
- the setting has to be simple but neat and remind the origins of IAIDO (Japan)
- the color of the setting can't be too bright or attractive in order to focus on on the character
- the character can't move in a realistic way, he has to move according to the very strict rules of the art

My point of view concerning the project once it was finished :
I was glad to know that the client was very pleased on the final result. But I have to admit... having to animate according to the client's wishes wasn't easy to follow because it didn't look believable to me. I explained to the client my way of seeing animation for this type of project and he told this "In IAIDO, only masters are allowed to add their personal touch to the kata. These personal touches are what you call <<realism>> in your animations. IAIDO students need to see what perfection is according to IAIDO, even if it means moving in an unusual way". After that, I better understood why the client preferred having a character moving like a robot rather than a real human being.

Video of the entire Ippon-Me mae kata.

These are self-portraits I did this summer when i was in China ^^ I think that if I had to compare myself to an animal, I think I would be... a monkey !!

Son Of Destiny was a project also done at school. It was a collaboration between LMent Studios and a team of students from my school. Our goal was to provide LMent Studios with a high-poly 3D database, of characters and sets, so they could later on do a cinematic for their upcoming game. The characters you see below are the ones on which I worked on : Seiko (the main character), a ram (Seiko's loyal companion), a wolf ("evil" character who attacks Seiko's village).

You can go check LMent Studios' website for more information : http://sonofdestiny.phpnet.org/

This is my very first high-poly modelling and the frist character with which I made a walking animation. It's Briareos from the manga Appleseed. I did this work during the summer of 2006.

Briareos walking